Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.
Villa Borghese is a beautiful park in the middle of Rome. Hovering above the ground is a large blue baloon which grants tourists a 360 degree view of the city.
Now, I don’t want to start a whole new 600 comment-long thread, but don’t you think this looks like a smaller, blue version of the old Google Maps UFOs?
Thanks: Leonardo Querzoni & Pedro Picotes
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Link to specific places either as a Google Maps page or a decimal latitude and longitude written like this: lat/lng:55.949400,-3.200000.
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No, because it is clearly in focus, while the “ufos” are not. Past about 30 yards (27 meters for those across the pond) focus of a camera becomes essentially unlmited. This is why the roofs of buildings and the street are all equally in focus and why planes are in focus with the ground beneath them. You seem to be suggesting the ufo’s could be balloons, but they’d have to be damn close to camera, which would make them teeny tiny baloons.
I spent 20 years in the weather service. It is not uncommon to track RADIOSONDES to a height of 4 millibars, or approximately 40km. Not sure if this is a factor, but a weather balloon would appear out of focus if the camera was aircraft bourne vice on a satellite platform. Just my 2-cents.
A balloon, you say, hmm ?
And where on the ground is the shadow of that balloon ?
Just a little way SSE is this…
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
mmmm… don’t know what the hell it is… it seems like a graphical “retouching” on the photo.
If you “see” it as an arrow, then it is pointing to one of the buildings of the USA embassy (the one on the other side of the street).
It’s a balloon…I went up in it in June 2005 on a trip to Rome. In the picture, the little brownish circle to the upper left of the blue balloon is the base for the winch that runs the balloon up and down on it’s cable. It’s the Aerophile 5500 and is the largest tethered balloon in the world. Goes up 150m.
I’m from Rome and I can confirm that it’s a baloon… for tourists.
Bye
Matteo
It’s a sightseeing balloon, called “L’Ottavo Colle” (The Eighth Hill, since Rome has been built over seven hills), where you can have a wonderful view of Villa Borghese’s surroundigs.